Regenerating

Clear-cutting and heavy shelterwood cuts may be used to successfully regenerate eastern hardwood stands. However, these types of harvest cuts have usually resulted in poor regeneration of northern red oaks on high quality sites. This holds true even where red oak was a prominent component in the overstory of the previous stand. Too often, these cuts have been made without regard to the presence or size of advance reproduction or to stump sprouting potential. The requirement that oak advance reproduction be present on the site prior to cutting has long been established. Guidelines are available for evaluating oak regeneration potential. They are based on size of oak advance reproduction and site characteristics, along with stump sprout potential. These guidelines were first developed for the central hardwood region. Now, similar guidelines have been developed for red oak on productive sites in the southern Appalachians. The relationship between the size of advance reproduction and post-harvestperformancein the southern Appalachians is similar to that in the central hardwood region. A model has been developed to predict the number of dominant and codominant red oaks that would be expected in the next stand if the current mature stand were clearcut. Both the central and southern guidelines require that the oak advance reproduction be sampled in the current mature stand. In the absence of such a preharvest inventory and the application of the guidelines to this inventory, an informed prescription of regeneration method cannot be made. In the southern Appalachians, the preharvest inventory may show that the existing advance reproduction would provide the desired amount of red oak in the next stand. Then the appropriate prescription could be either a clearcut or a heavy shelterwood cut. In some areas red oak advance reproduction is present, but is too small to compete successfully in the next stand. Therefore, a shelterwood method would be used to develop the small advance reproduction into large advance reproduction. These oaks could compete successfully after final overstory removal, thereby maintaining a component of red oak in the next stand. This shelterwood method involves three emerging principles